Client-managed and IMS Connect-managed conversation state programming models

An IMS™ program can support a transaction that is composed of one interaction or multiple interactions. A transaction with multiple iterations is referred to as a conversational transaction.

You can enable your applications for business process choreography by indicating in your Java™ application that the conversation state will be managed by your application rather than by IMS Connect. By managing a unique conversation ID across iterations of a conversation, you allow different iterations to come in from any connection. This model is known as the client-managed conversation state programming model.

By default, the conversation state is still managed by IMS Connect to provide backward compatibility. This model is known as the IMS Connect-managed conversation state programming model.

To enable your applications for business process choreography or for use on shareable persistent socket connections, you must manage the conversation state in your client application. In your application, you indicate to IMS Connect that you need IMS to assign a conversation ID for you to pass among the iterations of the conversation by setting the useConvID property of the IMSInteractionSpec class to true. This client-managed conversation state programming model ensures that the different iterations of a conversation can come in from any connections without being rejected.
Recommendation: Use this client-managed conversation state programming model for all new application development for better conversation state management.